Miles
by aadarshinah
Summary: Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart. #38 in the Ancient!John 'verse.
1. Pars Una

_Miles_

An Ancient!John Story

* * *

**21 July, 2007 – Atlantis, Nova Loegria, Pegasus**

It's the scars that convince him.

It's the scars that convince him because other lies can be perfected, other questions explained away, but scars are forever and his skin is a map of them.

Most of them are faint, imperceptible to the point of imagination, lines healed away by people more skilled at healing than he: There is where Diana de Aynecuria Immunes had reset half the bones in his right side after the incident with the _autobirota_, pushing those that had pierced his skin back into her place with bare hands until the best healers could arrive. Those small ridges, all but invisible beneath his hair, are where Father drilled into his occipital bone to insert the nanoids that allow him to talk with Atlantis. They tell him that this is real, that this is something beyond the delusions of an anxious and lonely mind.

But it's the scars he doesn't remember that hold Iohannes' attention. The most obvious is the angry, livid cicatrix running from the dip of his collarbone well past the bottom of his sternum, the purpose for which he can only assume to be to give some primitive doctor access to his chest cavity, but there are others as well. A set of three matched scars, red and tender, has caved out places on both his legs near the ankle – two on the outside, one slightly higher on his inner left. Older than these but still unknown to him is the small scar, made as if by a miniature Wraith feeding slit by lacking the corresponding finger pad marks, on his neck.

And the wounds he expects? The jagged, raw lines of new-formed skin where glass from the auxiliary control room had been plucked out of his skin _are_ there, just not _raw_ or _new_. They're faint, hidden beneath a tan he did not have when the city was submerged, and old – old enough for him to believe that three years have passed.

/It has been more than three years,/ 'Lantis corrects gently, brushing against his mind like silk and secrets and sunshine on clear spring days. She is afraid for him. She is afraid for him and Iohannes doesn't know why.

* * *

"I can't believe Colonel Sheppard would actually try to kill himself," Keller says, moving to stand at his side, clearly trying to be comforting but going about it in all the wrong ways. Rodney wishes she wouldn't. Jennifer Keller is a beautiful woman, exactly his type in every way possible, and an exceptional doctor, but sometimes he finds it hard to be comfortable around her. It's not an issue of attraction (Rodney's married, not blind, but he's never felt compelled to act upon it), it's that she tries too hard. She tries to be less attractive than she is, less intelligent, less of anything that might cause her to be singled out in a crowd, as if she's afraid of being noticed, let alone noteworthy.

John has always done the same thing, but whereas he plays a game of smoke and mirrors, letting people see only what they want to see, Jennifer tries to fit herself into the box she's created in the image of so many less remarkable people. The real John is still there for people find if they look hard enough. But the real Jennifer is slowly disappearing, lost as she cuts everything which doesn't fit away, and it makes trying to carry on a conversation with the Third Expedition's Chief of Medicine an uncomfortable task even at the best of times.

At least, Rodney finds it uncomfortable, even if no one else does. It's like watching someone slowly kill herself, one bloody inch at a time, and he's already seen more than enough of that today.

Radek makes a noise of disagreement, tapping his fingers against the back of one of the waiting room's couches. "I do not think the Colonel was trying to kill himself."

"He tried to stop his own heart," Evan points out from the couch opposite, rather more sharply than is his wont – Rodney has not been keeping up with _that_ soap opera and doesn't know if they've broken up or are on the verge of it or _what_ anymore. "People who want to live generally don't do that."

"What you forget is that Colonel Sheppard is very much smarter than he wants us to believe – and I am not speaking of book smarts, though that is true also. He was in an observation room in middle of IHC in a room filled with people. He had to know that the moment he attempted anything an army of doctors would descend upon him, regardless of DNR, particularly with Rodney there."

"You're suggesting that he wanted us to save him," Sam considers out loud, leaning forward so that her elbows brush her thighs. "More than that, he wanted us to _shock_ him specifically."

Keller shifts beside him. "Why would he want that?"

Why would John want that indeed? Rodney can understand the subterfuge: If John's plan had been to have increasingly high voltages sent through his body, he had to have known Rodney would do everything in his power to stop it. Yet what purpose would that serve? Amnesia seems an unexpected and undesirable outcome, but what other change had there been? Had he simply reached the point where the burden of memory become too much?

Sam reaches the same conclusion half-a-second later. "You think he's attempting a full system restore."

"It is only conclusion that makes sense. Sheppard is self-sacrificing, not suicidal. He would not have bothered with the formal abdication otherwise."

Evan nods thoughtfully. When he speaks, his tone is more reasonable, almost as if he cannot be bothered to be impolite while he has a problem to turn over in his mind, "When I asked him what he was doing before I called the rest of you, he was writing down things he needed to remember. He knew he was going to forget."

"But why would he do that?" Keller asks, finally moving from her place at Rodney's side to sit near Evan on his couch. "Forgetting three years of your life on purpose, it doesn't make any sense. I'm not saying those three years were all a bed of roses, but it does seem a little extreme."

"Because it wasn't the last three years he was trying to get rid of," Rodney snorts, speaking up for the first time since this whole wretched conversation began. "It was the last twenty-seven billion years."

"So you think Sheppard was telling the truth about creating the universe?" Sam questions, sounding condescending only by incident.

"I don't know. But _he_ certainly believed it."

"Well, it would make sense, wouldn't it?"

"How so?"

"In the dreams I had," Evan offers, "Icarus always took an adversarial position to those in power. He was always trying to convince them _not_ to do something they believed to be good and righteous – the will of god, so to speak. If that's any indication of the way he spent all the years from the dawn of creation to now, who's to say some of that didn't trickle down into recorded history? _Open the box. Eat the apple. Fly towards the sun_."

"So what?" Sam asks, less confrontational than curious. "Your argument is that because there are myths about Satan, Sheppard must be telling the truth?"

"I'm saying that because Ra was a goa'uld and Thor was an Asgard, it's not outside the realm of possibility that the universe's last Ancient – who might very well have gone mad prevent all of the horrible things human beings have done to each other in the name of their gods – could be the original _Ha-Satan_."

"It has precedent," Radek admits.

"It's insane," Rodney counters, but is spared from having to point out just how _completely absurd_ it really is by the door from the hallway opening and Carson entering. "_Finally_. Do you have any idea how late you are? I've had to sit here and listen to this lot decide that, since it's debatable that John is actually crazy, he's probably just the Devil instead. Wait," he catches himself, watching Carson sink tiredly into the first chair he comes across – the stiff, uncomfortable one near the door the rest of them had purposefully avoided – and rub at his eyes with one hand. "What's wrong? Don't tell me with have another crisis going on because I, quite frankly, am at the end of my ability to deal with anything more complicated than the Valium addiction I see myself developing after this week."

Carson sighs heavily and, somehow, Rodney knows what's coming before he says anything. Not the specifics, but the general shape of the newest disaster they must face. "Kate didn't show up for her shift. When she didn't answer her comm, Amanda went by her quarters. They found her in her bed; she'd already been dead for hours."


	2. Pars Dua

_Miles_

An Ancient!John Story

* * *

**21 July, 2007 – Atlantis, Nova Loegria, Pegasus**

"Now I've got a question for you," Icarus says, examining the lunch tray in front of him with some curiosity.

With the last three years of his memories missing, it's entirely possible that Icarus is unfamiliar with most of the foods. While cuisine in the Pegasus galaxy has always had a decidedly Levantine bent, Evan knows Ancients never ate what they could not grow themselves, and that the existing greenhouses weren't designed to be orangeries. As the botanists are fond of bemoaning, they can cultivate low-lying plants like chickpeas, cranberries, and rice _in_ highly-automated _masse_, but anything that grows on trees, like olives or cacao, or even large shrubs, like coffee or tea, is beyond their capabilities.

(Which is not to say that botanists aren't trying. Half of them are trying to develop a new cultivar of coffee that grows more like a blackberry bramble. The rest are working with the engineers to try to convert one of the city's atria into a proper conservatory for the purpose.)

So, fully prepared to explain what _pearl millet_ and _pepper_ and even _cheese_ are, Evan pushes aside his own lunch and says, "Only seems fair. We've been asking you all sorts of things all morning. Go ahead."

His mouth twitches upwards in a familiar, easy smile. That's not changed, at least. That was always true. "You said your name is _Argathelianus_. Who adopted you?"

And that is… not the question he was expecting. "You did, actually."

"I sort of figured," Icarus shrugs. "No one else you've introduced me to has an Alteran name. So tell me about myself, Argathelianus: why did I adopt you?"

That's something Evan's still trying to figure out. He settles on, "It's complicated," as the best explanation.

Radek, sitting at the opposite end of the table, makes a noise he has to have picked up from Rodney. "He did it to mess with your head – to mess with your head and everybody else's."

"Yes, but I try not to ascribe base motivations to everything people do."

"People _are_ base motivations. Looking back over human history, is almost impossible to believe that a species as murderous and perfidious and bloodthirsty as ours managed to make it through two world wars and the invention of the hydrogen bomb without destroying ourselves."

"Well _that's_ a cheery thought. Thank you for that, Radek. I was trying to give Icarus a good impression of humanity."

Snorting, "He knows exactly what humanity is like. He's spent the better part of the last three years going up against our irrational instinct to fear what we do not understand."

"Yes," Icarus says dryly, "but you'll notice I don't actually _remember_ any of it, so feel free to go on misleading me about what a benevolent and peaceful species you are."

"Ah, but the Major here introduced himself as _Evan_, not _Argathelianus_. You remembered that on your own," Radek announces triumphantly, "which means your memories are not coming back or else not entirely gone. Which means that the answer we need may yet be in these papers."

Luckily, Icarus looks amused rather than exasperated, and accepts the stack of papers Radek hands him – luckily, because there is no doubt in his mind that Icarus would deliberately misconstrue, intentionally mistranslate, and outright lie anything he might translate _if_ he thought the Émigrés or the Third Expedition were a threat to Atlantis. "Let's see then…."

The top sheet is the paper with the nine chevron Gate address.

Icarus runs his fingers along the lines of text, yesterday's frantic writing having left deep impressions on the cheap paper. "_Freedom, Chance, Discovery_… These are the six _satores_ sent out from Avalon to confuse the _Haeretici_ if they ever tried to find us. _Discovery_ reached the Asgard galaxy during the Fifth Wave and they tracked it back to Avalon to find us. The Unfurlers used _Freedom _to find us during the Sixth Wave. That follows with what's written here, so I guess _Integrity_ got caught up in a supernova somewhere called NGC 5236-"

"It is galaxy," Radek interrupts. "We also call it Southern Pinwheel. Is about," here he pauses in the _notes_ he's taking on what blank sheets of printer paper remain, "sixteen million light years from here. Probably sixteen, maybe sixteen point five."

"Alright then, _Integrity_ probably got caught up in a supernova in your Pinwheel, so that's three _satores_ accounted for. Four, if you count _Audacity_ flying into a black hole somewhere you call NGC 4945."

"Another galaxy – it doesn't have a name, but is known to have black hole at its centre."

"So," Evan says, "four of these _satores_ are out of commission. What about _Chance_ and _Destiny_?"

"I guess _Chance_ went off course – that's the best I can give you with what's here. But _Destiny_…" Icarus taps the dots and squiggles in the middle of the page. "You need nine chevrons to dial from Aethiopia to the _satores_. Aethiopia has the only _porta_ the _satores_ can be dialled from. The _porta_ there is also the only one in Avalon the _satores_ can dial. Odds are that this is the address you'd dial aboard _Destiny_ to get you back to Avalon – either that, or it's the ravings of a madman. Even money either way."

"Doesn't do us much good if we can't get to _Destiny_."

"Can't tell you what I don't know, Doctor Z."

"Then how did you know you sometimes call me _Doctor Z_?"

"Do you want me to help you or not?"

"Maybe the answer is somewhere else," Evan says diplomatically. "What about _Aethiopia_? Any clue where that is?"

"Somewhere near Terra," Icarus says dismissively, leafing through the rest of the papers. There are sixty-five total – an impressive amount considering the timeframe they'd been written in. Only the first is in English. The rest are a roughly even split between cramped lines of Alteran script and equations of shaky Arabic numerals. "These are equations used in intergalactic navigation – between your experience with _Daedalus, Apollo_, and _Odyssey_, you should be able to figure those out on your own."

Radek kicks him under the table, offering him a brilliant, joyous smile that says _see, see, he remembers _Daedalus_ and_ Apollo_; his memories are coming back; our John isn't gone forever_ for the three seconds it last before hardening. Its looks like these that let Evan know that Radek still loves him, that this forced coolness between them is equally uncomfortable for the both of them. He wishes Radek would just let go of this image he has of love having to be something grand and harsh and fated. Love doesn't need to be like that. Love hardly ever is like that, whatever examples Rodney and Icarus may leave for them.

Love can be quiet too. It can be safe and certain, sneaking up on people where they least expect it. For every Sheppard and McKay, there are a hundred more stories like their own, where friends become lovers without the stars aligning for them to find each other. Love doesn't need to be a repeated tale of loss and tragedy and stolen moments of happiness before the headsman's blade or asp's bite.

Every love story is dangerous, but rarely are they so dangerous as that.

"And these ones here," Icarus continues, "seem to be an algorithm for a pseudo-random number generator using a combination of discrete logarithms _and_ quadratic reciprocity… Very inefficient, even with something like Atlantis' processing capabilities, but it fits in with the extreme paranoia of my ancestors."

Evan turns back to Icarus, somewhat startled by this offhand expression of intelligence. "I'm sorry, was that English or is your translation matrix on the fritz again?" He knows, objectively, that there is more to Icarus than meets the eye. He is layers upon layers, depths within depths; the abilities he shows are only a quarter of those he truly processes. He cares too much and shares too little and understands retribution better than redemption, but underneath it, Icarus is only a man – a gifted solider with human failings, tortured by genius that was stifled by war.

"It seemed perfectly sensible to me," Radek says.

"You two are hilarious. Why am I helping you again?"

"Because you like us?" Evan offers with a grin.

Iohannes smiles, one of those bright, self-effacing smiles that are impossible to tell apart from the real thing, "I'll take your word on that," he says. And Evan has no choice but to do just that.


	3. Pars Tria

_Miles_

An Ancient!John Story

* * *

**21 July, 2007 – Atlantis, Nova Loegria, Pegasus**

_This is a letter to yourself_, the first page of text says, _and before you go any further, apologize to everyone around you for what you've put them through. You may not be able to remember them, but I do, and if you listen very closely to everything I have to say, you _will_ remember them too. _

_… _

_You apologize? _

_Yeah, I didn't think so_.

* * *

Iohannes glances up, looking without appearing to look for the two men they've locked with him in isolation. In theory, Lorne and Zelenka have been locked in here with him to keep from spreading the _dreams_ they're having to the rest of Atlantis' population, but Iohannes suspects that's just an excuse to keep eyes on him at all times. Zelenka's just a little too interested in what's written on the papers for Iohannes to be entirely comfortable and Lorne, well, war is war; soldiers are soldiers – even if he _had_ apparently adopted this one before losing his memories.

Watchers or fellow captives, the pair has retreated to the small sitting area that is just about as far from his hospital bed as the room allows. They've taken seats across from each other, but there's something awfully forced in their formalities, as if it's something new and having to be relearned. Former lovers, he assumes. They'll be wrapped up in their own drama too much to pay any attention to his own.

He continues reading.

* * *

_So, let's not start at the beginning – that's a little too confusing right now. The river of time doesn't run as smooth as Father told you. Correlation is not causation, though the consequences are the same._

_I'm explaining it badly. Maybe I should start at the beginning._

_In the beginning, you are born, in the middle of a Siege that had already lasted for a generation. Your birth comes in the middle of an upsurge in the Wraith attack. Mother stays at her post until the final moments of labour, shouting orders until the contractions are too close together for her to do anything but shout. Ten minutes after you are born, she is back at her post. A week later, she is back aboard_ Tria_, and three years later she is dead._

_(More or less. Because things are always more complicated than they appear.) _

_Is that the beginning? Or maybe it's this: _

_In the beginning, there is a singularity and in that point is everything that ever was or is or will be. Timeless and terrible, no sentient species has ever devised a torment that could be its equal. You are there in that nothingness for so long that you forget the sound of voices and the feel of sunlight. You forget laughter and happiness. You forget blood and tears. You forget everything but the terrible hole in your soul where your humanity should be and burn and rave at the closing of the day. _

_When at last the fight left you, you swear you will do better next time, though you don't know how, because you've done all you could do – all you could ever dream of doing. But still you swear._

_(And then, suddenly, there is a next time.)_

_But that's not the beginning, is it? It's this: _

_You wake up to find Nicolaa dead, her blood staining your skin in ways you'll never be able to wash clean, and you _know_ what you have to do. You run all the way to the _cathedra_ and you tell Atlantis you'll do whatever it takes to keep her safe for as long as she needs protecting. Your life is hers – it has always been hers – and when you wake up next, it's to man aquiver with barely contained energy, the very avatar of curiosity, and you don't know it then, but this is when your life begins._

* * *

The silence is deafening. Without Icarus to act as a barrier between them, Radek refuses to do much more than acknowledge his existence, as if he can go on avoiding Evan unhindered by the fact they are locked in isolation together. Evan would say something, anything, to force his attention for even a minute, but dares not. Anything he says now will only push Radek farther away. If he allows Radek his distance, he will eventually return. It will never be what he wants. He will never have anything more than the scraps of affection that Radek allows him – but even that is better than not having Radek at all.

It's a sobering thought.

Even more sobering is the realization that he _always_ does this. He _always_ attaches himself to the wrong people, the ones unwilling or unable to provide the precocious few things he asks for in a relationship – which includes admitting that their relationship _is actually a relationship_.

Closing his eyes, Evan lets his head fall back until it hits the couch, and tries to figure out what the hell he keeps doing wrong. He _tried_ not to fall for Radek. He didn't _want_ to risk ruining the best friendship he's ever had. And yet, here he is, sitting across from Radek on a couch older than human civilization in a city older than the human _species_, trying to figure out how he keeps monumentally failing at human interaction. Aliens and artificial intelligences he can handle. His own species, he cannot.

Too tired to honestly help himself, Evan snorts at the ridiculousness of it all. Radek, however, must take it for a snore, as he says his name almost tentatively.

"Yeah?" he asks tiredly.

"You shouldn't be sleeping right now."

Radek has a point: Doctor Heightmeyer had been _scared to death_ while asleep in her own bed after a day spent attempting to psychoanalyze Sheppard, and so now the remainder of the medical staff is afraid it will happen to everyone else. Those few that have been having the dreams – himself, Radek, Hyun-Sook Che, and Amanda Cole – have been placed in isolation for their own safety. Safety being a somewhat ambiguous word, as the only _cure_ anyone has come up with so far is to pump them as full of stimulants as they can before their hearts give out or the sleep deprivation drives them mad. The end result of which is, "I couldn't sleep right now if I tried."

"It certainly looks as if you are trying."

He sighs this time, lifting his head off the couch just enough to fix Radek with a tired look. "Can we please not?"

Radek frowns, confusion overriding the concern painted across his features. "_Can we please not_ what?"

"_This_," Evan says heavily, leaning forward to pitch his elbows on his knees and prop his chin in the palm of his left hand. "If you wanna be with me, it's fine, it's great; go right ahead… But if you're gonna go back to ignoring me after all this…" He sucks in a shaky breath. "I can't stand all this back-and-forth. We can be lovers or friends or you can keep on ignoring me 'til the end of days, but you've got to pick one. You might be able to bounce between them, no problem, but I can't, Radek. I thought I could, but I can't. I love you and I can't keep watching you walk away because you're scared or paranoid or whatever it is anymore."


	4. Pars Quattor

_Miles_

An Ancient!John Story

* * *

**22 July, 2007 – Atlantis, Nova Loegria, Pegasus**

Radek doesn't say anything for the longest time. He stares at his hands, the better to avoid Evan's eyes. He wants nothing else than to find the magic words that will make Evan change his mind, that will convince him to let them go on as they have been, but he knows there are none. He's fully aware of just how horrible he's been about this, this _thing_ they have, but he's had to be. He's known from the beginning just how easy it would be to fall for Evan – he'd known it even as he was falling and resolutely telling himself that the descent was in his control.

He falls in love with Evan's quiet competence and his low-key acceptance of everything Pegasus might throw at them. He falls in love with his sober honesty and the silences that are never awkward between them. He falls with the kind-heartedness woven into Evan's bones and with the compassion netted into his very soul and the knowledge that he deserves someone so much better than Radek but has still somehow chosen _him._ He falls in love and refuses to call it that, because science or not, words have power and love is the most powerful of them all.

It had been easy enough back when Evan had still been a major in the Air Force and might be transferred away at any moment – Radek would never get to keep him, so he might as well take all that he could. It hadn't been serious because it couldn't be and that… that had allowed him to get far closer than he ever should have.

But then Evan became _praetor_ and _heres_ and _permanent_ in a way he'd never been before and that terrified him. Now when Evan leaves him – as he inevitably would – it wouldn't be because he has no choice, but because he's decided Radek _isn't good enough_.

It's not abandonment issues – Radek came to terms with those years ago, thank you very much, – it's the plain unadulterated knowledge that he's not the kind of person people stay with. Radek is safe and Radek is convenient but Radek is not the type of guy people stay with. People don't want _safe_ and _convenient_. They want _Romeo and Juliet_; they want _Antony and Cleopatra_; they want the certifiable crazy that is Rodney and Sheppard, willing to bring the universe crashing down around their ears if that's what it takes for them to stay together, and that's just not the kind of person Radek is. One day Evan's going to wake up and realize he chose the wrong person and Radek doesn't know if he can take it.

No, it's better to end it now, before their hearts get broken. It's better to stop this and go back to being just friends while they still can. He needs Evan in his life however he can get and _just friends_ is better than _exes who can't stand the sight of each other_.

When he finally has control of his voice, he means to say, "It's over," but what comes out is, "It's not that simple."

"Then _make_ it that simple," Evan immediately counters. There are no words for the tone he uses then, a little sharp and a little broken, like he's taken a hammer to the _in case of emergency_ glass around his heart and decided to use the shards as a weapon rather than pulling the alarm that will allow them to end this all. (And maybe his metaphor is a little forced, but he's not slept in three days and has so many stimulants in his system he's about three seconds from shaking out of his skin. It's the best he can do on short notice).

"I'm just looking out for the both of us," he doesn't say. Nor does he pull out his readymade list of all the reasons their relationship was a bad idea to begin with. Instead what comes out is, "I don't want to lose you."

"I'm not going anywhere, Radek."

"You say that now."

"What does that even _mean_? I'm not going anywhere. I've _never_ been going anywhere. You're the one that keeps pushing me away."

"You will."

"What the actual _fuck_, Radek?"

Radek can count on one hand the number of times he's heard Evan curse without using his thumb and its appearance now startles him so much that he glances up. This turns out to be a mistake, as the moment he does Evan catches his eyes and he can't look away. All the reasons ready on his lips – imminent death and alien priestesses and the non-zero chance that _things just won't work out _– fall away.

"I don't know where you're getting this idea," Evan says holding his gaze.

Radek should be searching for counterarguments, but for the moment the only thought that crosses his mind is how grey Evan's eyes look in this light, that's how badly he needs sleep.

When he offers none, Evan continues, "I love you, Radek. I love what we have, even if it makes me want to rip out my hair half the time. I miss you when I've not seen you for a couple hours and I'm getting just as bad as Icarus about finding excuses to swing by your lab, or would be if you weren't avoiding me half the time I try. I can't imagine caring for anyone else half as much as I do you, so you don't have to worry about me leaving. I couldn't if I wanted to."

"That's not what you were saying five minutes ago."

"I was trying to be a gentlemen," Evan tells him, sounding just a little bit defensive.

That's all it takes to startle a laugh out of him. It's light at first, as much a shock to Radek as it is to Evan, but deepens quickly, stealing his breath and making his abdominal muscles ache from overuse. "_Jsme… Jsme taková idioti,_" he manages to mutter, catching Evan's crushed expression before it has time to truly settle and turning it into the beginnings of a smile.

Then he's on his feet, closing the distance between them more quickly than he would have thought possible. Evan wraps one hand around the back of his neck, pulling him closer before their lips have even managed to touch, but the angle's wrong and it's not close enough, so Radek braces himself against the couch, a hand on either side of Evan's hips as he ducks his head further. But that's still not close enough, not after a month of partial separation or a week of outright avoidance, which is how he ends up in Evan's lap, hands skimming his body until they tangle in his no-longer-regulation hair.

He could happily spend the rest of eternity like this, lost in the feel Evan's hot mouth and the still-forbidden feel of his hand sliding under Radek's tunic and creeping up his back, but Evan has other plans. Somehow he manages to flip them so that Radek ends up with his back flat against the cushions with Evan looming over him, determined to try to touch him everywhere at once and making a significant amount of progress on that front. Something in Evan's eyes distracts him momentarily – a strange, worshipful sort of look, almost as if he cannot believe he's allowed to have this, – but his confusion doesn't last for more than a few seconds before he's lost in it all again.

He pulls away just long enough to steal a breath and pant a curse at the Ancient's obsession with laces into the curve of Evan's neck before they're kissing again, more deeply now. He was an idiot to think he could ever give this up and-

* * *

**NOTE BENE: **Do to my long-running dissatisfaction with finally coming to a head, I will no longer be posting to it after today. Should you wish to continue to read this series, it can be found on AO3 here: archiveofourown works/ 1359856/ chapters/ 4470906.


End file.
